Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/196

196 of Elbeuf, Sedan, Rheims, and Roubaix; and the French rapidly came to excel all the rest of Europe in the finish, coloring, and softness of their superfine cloths.

Great Britain, famous for her wool for so many centuries during which it was her chief source of national wealth, long remained dependent upon the Continent for the great bulk of her supply of the fabrics—especially the finer qualities—of which her wools formed the raw material. When Julius Caesar invaded England he found the inhabitants of the southern portion of the island well acquainted with the spinning and weaving of both flax and wool. Wherever the Romans went they carried their arts and their manufactures with them. They were at great pains to send their best artificers to the island, forming them into colleges or guilds, endowing them with certain privileges, and placing them under the great office of the empire, the Court of Sacred Largesses. The first woolen factory was established by them at Winchester, about one hundred years after the conquest of the island, to make the clothing of their army of occupation; but, on the departure of the Romans, the woolen manufacture became practically extinct again.

There is scant evidence of any revival of the woolen manufacture in England until the time of Edward III. Early in the fourteenth century the English are spoken of contemptuously as "only shepherds and wool merchants," dependent for their clothing upon the Netherlands, the only wool weavers in Europe; but even at this time (reign of James I) wool was said to constitute nine tenths of the national wealth of England. Wool was styled "the flower and strength, the revenue and blood of England"; and from time immemorial the lord high chancellor has presided over the House of Lords on a wool-sack, which gave its name to his office, the emblem of the close association existing between the kingdom and its leading industry. Edward III, in the fourteenth century, began the systematic encouragement of the woolen industry. He attracted to England many Flemish families skilled in the art of fabricating wool, investing them with privileges and immunities beyond those of his native subjects.

The king who was wise enough to import citizens to teach his people a new art, sought also to foster its development by restrictive legislation. The exportation of English wool was forbidden, the importation of foreign cloth made illegal, no subject was permitted to wear any clothing save that of native manufacture, and finally a tax of twenty shillings a sack was imposed upon all wool entering into the home manufacture; for this shrewd king did not propose to neglect his own treasury while laying the foundations of new wealth for his people. These laws